so get this

this is sometimes not the healthiest way to write, but i tend to try to sit in the heads of the characters i'm writing. for example, in house song, i would think, okay i'm dean and sam is sick and he's not getting any better. i'm sixteen so i don't know what this is and i don't have a lot of power. how does that feel and what have i tried and what would i do next?

it's super cathartic after the fact, and i think helps me work through emotions in the moment, no matter what i'm feeling. i'm sure a lot of writers would agree that writing a devastating death scene makes me feel better about my shitty day at work or feeling refreshed after writing a sex scene or a fight scene or a 'dean makes coffee' scene.

i've not really talked with other writers, so i'm not sure if this is a common way to conceptualize writing.

now it's important to note that i don't write would i would do in these situations lol! me and dean or me and sam or me and bobby are almost nothing alike. characters can do bad terrible shitty things, but i'm interested in why would they feel like they could/had to do that?

it's good to have a good basis of who the characters are. i base this on emotions and decisions we get from them in canon (or sometimes, extrapolated emotions). for example, dean never explicitly says he feels lonely after sam leaves for stanford, but i imagine that feeling was crippling for a long time, since he and sam spent so much of their time together for decades.

i'm pretty forgiving with OOC-ness in other people's writing (and if anyone thinks my writing is OOC, that's fine too!) because i think any character can be pushed to anything if the situation makes it so. sam might not do XYZ, but what if ABC happened?

specifically, when writing my own fic, i think about what mental hold-ups this character might have and try to break them down. do they think it's wrong? are they too proud? do they think they are a certain kind of person? what do they want?

the reason i mention it can get unhealthy is i've posted a few clips of a WIP that i began a while ago in which sam has to clean up the last bits of dean in the bunker (e.g., his toothbrush, washing his dishes, sorting through his momentos), but opening the document was like a shotgun blast to the head of grief. it was miserable to work on, because i had to put myself in the shoes of sam who had just lost everything and was ripping dean out of his chest and life piece by piece and it was just...not fun. i took psychic damage every time i opened it. it made my day worse, having to take whatever mood i was in and try to write from the POV of literally soul-crushing grief. i imagine the 4000 words i do have are probably pretty okay and accurate to sam, but actively writing it was not fun. as i imagine sam's first year post-dean were not very fun.

i also have mentioned a few times that i'm not super comfortable writing in s4 sam's POV because he's coming from a place of active addiction, and that's a difficult headspace for me to linger in. you'll probably never get a fic from s4 sam's POV from me...like...ever. same with s8. and why i'm not super interested in writing MOC dean, because that's not a POV i feel like it would be fun to write from for me personally.

for ageswap specifically, it's a bit trickier because they are so different from their canon selves. what parts of them have changed? for me, i think sam would have even more anger for how they were raised if possible. he remembers what it was like, and what their dad used to be, and he's watched this slow slide into who john is today. he is more responsible, but also more exacting of others, in that he has expectations of people like john does. i think dean is a little pettier, and a lot more betrayed by sam leaving for school. i think he's made even more feral and angry by hell and reacts to people with a lot with big emotions because he had john getting onto him less for "stiff upper lip"ing it. he's a little bratty and more showy and WAY more outwardly desperate for approval. he's already these things in canon, but given an environment where these things are not called out or punished or tempered respectively, they magnify.

this might've been a whole bunch of nothing. lol. i'm sorry if that's the case!!! i always feel a bit insufferable when talking about my writing process, so apologies if i came off that way! i love writing spn! and i am occasionally bad at explaining it, haha!

also, "fresh-from-hell-babybrother-dean and his terrifing-yet-sososoloving-older-brother/mother/father-sam" made me laugh out LOUD!! hope the rest of your week is great! <3

dean is drunk.

he is catastrophically drunk.

the good news, at least, is that sam is, too. they didn't really think about it, cracking open two six-packs as they watched out-of-order reruns of star trek. they got down to the last bottle and sam and dean traded it back and forth between them, a little too uncoordinated and confused for either of them to win the obligatory rock-paper-scissors game.

dean's head swims.

they'd been settled in this warm, comfortable, close haze for hours, in between hunts with low stakes and lower effort. a quick salt and burn in provo, working their slow way over to colorado for a potential shifter committing cattle fraud. dean is absolutely pleased as fucking punch to be investigating something as delightful as "cattle fraud," and had been cracking jokes all afternoon about rustlers and cowboys and robbers.

sam had been more indulgent than usual, rolling his eyes and occasionally joining in on a joke when he could. dean had been in heaven.

the summer had been uncomfortably, stiflingly warm, but a cool breeze had picked up as they got higher and higher into the mountains.

their motel room is still a little sticky-hot, made worse by the beers they cracked as soon as they sat down. the empty beer bottles have been sweating on the coffee table for the past few hours, and water drips slowly on the floor.

they've dragged it over to the side of sam's bed, where they lay side-by-side. the glare of the lamp had obscured the image on the old box tv, so dean had moved over onto sam's in his jeans and thin t-shirt and socks.

sam's saliva on the mouth of the beer bottle is a little cold by the time dean drags it back to his own mouth. he licks at the bottle opening briefly, not really thinking about why, before he takes it into his mouth. he passes it back to sammy, but his fingers linger inexplicably on the glass.

what should be dean passing it, turns into dean holding the bottle as sam brings it to his lips, their fingers tangling. sam's head is tilted back against the headboard, hazel eyes a little hazy and wet, and he looks over at dean, tilting his head so he's looking up, his pink mouth working at the lip of the bottle.

a stab of hot-lust-sammy shoots through dean so acutely that he lets go of the bottle as if burned. the bottle dips, and sam spills some beer down his chin. his brow furrows, and he turns his big-wide-wet eyes back up at dean in confusion.

dean's heart pounds in his fucking throat. captain picard is still saying something on the tv, but dean can't hear him at all. what was that? dean settles back against the couch, and jolts when something hard nudges at his fingertips. it's sammy, passing him the bottle. dean takes it, but doesn't drink out of it.

he's had enough, good god.

the tv needs to be louder. dean looks around the bed spread, but can't find the remote. he pats the sheets to no avail.

sam sighs, that petulant long-suffering little huff out of his nose that he's been doing since he was three. dean, despite the pulsing ache in his chest, softens at it.

sam settles back against the bed, and his head thumps softly on the pillow he's been using as a back rest.

dean tries incredibly hard to focus on the tv. picard is delivering a monologue, but all of the words are too big for dean's brain right now. his mind is stuck on the thin sliver of sammy stomach that has been displayed for the past hour and a half, tan and taut and peaking out from underneath his prep-boy college collared polo.

dean doesn't know how sam manages to make collared striped shirts so...grunge, or manly, or whatever, but he does. god, does he.

dean can't help it; he looks again.

sam's eyes are open as he stares at the tv, but his head slowly inches back. no, not back, towards. his head slides from his pillow until he hits dean's shoulder, and dean watches breathlessly as sam readjusts, scoots down, and rests his head on dean's chest. his ear is pressed right to his sternum, where he can surely hear dean's heart pounding a mile a minute.

"sammy?" dean asks, a croak, and sam must decide to go for it--whatever "it" is--because he rolls over dean's leg, a crushing pain until--

dean's whole body freezes. sam is cradled between his legs, long, octopus arms reaching up around dean's middle and bullying their way underneath the small of his back.

the only thing keeping him grounded and not floating away on sam-sam-sam, is the sharp bite of sam's sharp chin in his sternum. and then sam tilts his head, and rests his temple against dean's left pec, where his heart thunders and roars.

his mouth is pink and swollen, and dean wants to kiss him with a craving that's almost blinding. unable to help himself, he reaches up and nudges sam's bottom lip with the tip of his thumb. sam lets him.

if sam's had a plan, he's forgotten it, because he doesn't say a word as dean probes across his face, a thumb stroking his cheekbone, a hand carded gently through his hair.

maybe this was his plan.

"sammy," dean says, just to say it, a there you are, and here's my baby, and i love you.

sam's eyes are so soft and wet and wide that dean wants to eat him whole. he looks so vulnerable, like he hasn't since he was single digits, old enough to be touched and held and adored, falling asleep against dean's chest like this.

dean cards another hand through sam's hair, pushing sweaty bangs back from sam's forehead, and sam's eyelids flutter shut.

the room rocks like the deck of a ship, warm and comforting and safe.

dean thinks they might be the only two people alive.

the television hums behind sam's head, the only monsters just people in costumes and plastic makeup that come off at the end of the day.

sam's eyes flutter open again, and quiet, so quiet that dean would think he hallucinated it if it weren't for the way sam's pink, slick mouth parts.

"thank you, mommy,"

dean's brain hiccups around the word. sam's face looks sleepy and blissed out, not a wrinkle in his brow. he looks up at dean with trust and vulnerability and, and--

dean's stomach churns. they had a mom. dean feels like a fraud. he couldn't keep sammy safe; can't keep him safe. what is sam trying to say, what does he want dean to say?

is this a sex thing? or worse, is it not a sex thing? is sam pretending to be a child? what is dean supposed to say to that?

"sammy?" dean asks, mouth dry.

"yeah?" sam blinks, still so soft and quiet and warm.

dean wants to ask. if he weren't drunk, he might've shoved sam off and screamed at him, but the vulnerable little look on sam's face makes dean's chest tighten and stomach clench. sam trusts him right now, open and raw and pulsing.

dean pets a thumb over sam's brow, still unsure and a little nauseous. those two syllables have rocked his entire world, his entire brain.

"'re you feeling okay, baby?" dean asks, the nickname coming out before he can stop it. sam melts even further into him if possible, eyes going half mast at the pure pleasure of hearing the name. dean combs through sam's hair again, heart pounding.

they've gone somewhere they can't come back from.

and dean, struggling to reconcile this, doesn't...necessarily...mind. sam is his; sam is his baby. it's always been that way. dean isn't worthy of the title but what else is new? if sam wants to give it to him...

"yeah," sam says, his gaze flicks between dean's eyes, and he lights up, a soft happy sleepy smile on his face that crinkles his eyes almost closed. "i'm perfect."

dean kisses his boy, simply for the gift of being his.

~~~

i was so enamoured with this idea that it got a bit away from both me and the prompt, so if you want something with a little more fidelity lol (and something a bit more sexual style), i will happily write another! you know i will never pass up a mommy dean monday opportunity. i might schedule your second ask for next monday as well, so we can spread the joy of mommy!dean!

thank you sm for this ask as always, darling! hope you're well! :)